Ah planning a wedding. Venture with planner Vicky Johnson and her "Nearly-Wed" band of brides, through the ever glamorous, vitally important, detail oriented process of orchestrating the most important day in a woman's life (or at least it seems that way at the time) all while attempting to maintain some decorum and have a great time. These are the DC Nearlyweds!!

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Destination: Matrimony

It's the first day of July, so everybody's thinking about summer vacation. It's not surprising that the current issue of Instyle Weddings and one of my favorite wedding blogs, Manolo for the Brides, are featuring articles about destination weddings. It's so hot and so sticky who isn't thinking about a nice beachy vacation spot right now? (photo credit Emily Perello)

Doesn't that look nice?

But do you actually save money on a destination wedding? It does mean you don't have to invite as many guests, and you generally do use an all-inclusive resort, which is great. But you also have to plan an entire weekend of activities, and because your guests are stranded at your destination with you, you're responsible for their transportation and more of their meals for the weekend (at least you have to find them restaurants).

So I'm not sure that a destination wedding is all that great for the budget. What I am looking forward to is spending a whole weekend with my family and best friends. Since I'm putting so much effort into the reception, it just makes sense to help people make a weekend out of it if they want to, and it means we have more time to spend with everyone.

But how much do we have to be responsible for? We've currently got activities planned for Saturday daytime, Saturday evening, and Sunday (the wedding). Do we need to do something Friday night? Should we plan an activity for Monday morning, for those who are waiting for late flights? How much is too much and how much is too little?

4 Comments:

Just to clarify, I really wasn't writing about destination weddings, and I have no evidence that the wedding in question was a destination one since I was linking to a site devoted to wedding simplicity. In fact, I got the impression that the wedding was in the bride and groom's area. Indeed, the lighthouse where the wedding took place is probably a half-hour's drive from my own home.

Still, I think it's a gorgeous shot and I do tend to agree strongly with you about destination weddings. Just because you go away and take only a few people with you doesn't necessarily mean you're going to save much cash.

For FI and I , our wedding is "destination" for about 80% of the guests--so we just did little touches--getting a great discount on a nice hotel block of rooms, oot bags--and we are giving them "Options" on Friday ( day before the wedding) Capital tour/golf tourny--than the rehersal dinner and wedding on saturday, and than a brunch on Sunday. I feel that with this area there is so much for people to do, structure isin't as necessary, but the little touches are still nice :)